D&D 5E Martials v Casters...I still don't *get* it.

[DnD Warlord]

How you feel about 4e not with standing none of your numbers are all complete. All we know is WoTC told us 4e out sold 3e... so unless you think splitting the 3e fan base between piazo and WoTC somehow both WoTC sold more then 3e AND piazo sold more then WoTC it isn’t possible.

You my friend are somewhat misinformed. Pathfinder’s 3e spin-off outsold D&D 4e for some time. It was actually the 3e market that was split with players who stuck to D&D 3e/3.5 and those that migrated to Paizo. Say what you like about Pathfinder but Paizo went from a magazine publisher to publishing the worlds most popular RPG in an extraordinarily short length of time.

Whether you like 4e or not is irrelevant. No point starting an edition war about this rule or that change. The fact is, it failed to do what WOC wanted it to do, which was be a successor to 3e, in such a way as to persuade the majority of previous edition players to move over to it... the purpose of every D&D edition before or since.

Top 5 RPGs--Q2 2011

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Top 5 RPGs--Summer 2014

ps. If you don’t want to rekindle the edition wars don’t lead with calling any edition a failure

 

[Vaalingrade]

This thread makes me want to go back to my Warlord home-brew... but nobody ever has anything to say about it aside from "It's too complicated" :/

To be perfectly honest, a 'complicated' martial class would be such a breath of fresh air. As long as it wasn't the annoying kind of complex like wizards where you have to do homework every rest because Vance.

 

[Campbell]

Here's my overall stance. Combat balance is not really an issue in 5e. The out of combat utility of most characters who are not spellcasters is more limited, but I view that as largely a side effect of bounded accuracy's impact on the skill system. A 15th level fighter is barely better at Athleticism than a first level one. Cannot really run faster, lift more, or meaningfully impose more force to anything except their blades. I think someone who is reliably facing down pit fiends should feel like that outside of combat.

On the flipside I feel like magic (especially "plot" disruptive magic) has been overly nerfed. I would like high level characters to actually feel like they are worthy of the sorts of adventures the game seems to want them to go on.

 

[DnD Warlord]

To get back on topic.

I want to be able on downtime, while the wizard is transcribing a new spell to their book, to talk to the old knight who lives 2 days ride away. The old knight fought a dragon and won. I want his secrets.

When I get back in 2 weeks, I, have "Dragonkiller Assault". I can attack TEN TIMES but only to vs dragons.

I slot that in with my other martial techniques for the day.

• "Triple Threat" Attack 3 Times.
• "Bide Pain" Gain 3d6 temporary hit points.
• "Backalley Blade" Attack 5 times with a dagger against a prone target
• "Hardness of Foot" Move my speed while ignoring difficult terrain.
• "No Look Toss" Search and make a single thrown weapon attack
• "Don't Try it" Ready an attack against attacking foe that deals 8d6 bonus damage and causes CON save to not lose limbs
• "You're Fired" Attack deal bonus 8d6 fire damage (requires flametongue or other flaming sword)
• "The Long Goodbye" Shieldbash foe 50 feet away from you.
• "Shieldcracker" Attack 4 times with +2 bonus against an enemy holding a shield
• "Bulletcount" Identify and count all ranged weapons and unused ammunition within 100 feet.

That sounds like a great idea

 

[Ancalagon]

You do if you want it to feel like a DnD wizard though.

4E tried to back away from the traditional feel of DnD and bring in a sameness to the classes in what was a totally different system to what came before it (and after).

We all know what happened there.

Just because 4e didn't do something correctly doesn't mean it can't be done.

In those other games, playing a wizard feels plenty different than playing a burglar. And if you want other examples of more "limited" wizard look at warhammer frpg 2nd ed, where wizard use "color" magic and specialize in one. If you are a fire wizard, you do fire magic... end of story. Gurps is another.

Anyway, what I was saying was not so much "do it like troika and fix D&D" Rather, I was pointing out that playing other systems will make you see the problem in D&D a lot more.

And finally, does a low level caster not feel like a caster in D&D? No. the problem only appears at mid and higher level. So the solution is simple - limit the number of spells a caster can have ready. That way no caster can fix everything.

 

[TheSword]

There were two points I made: one, you must take the attack action to grapple or shove (so you’re still taking the attack action). Not important, just snark. If the argument is you don’t have to take the attack action, you can shove, well, technically that is still the attack action. Ha ha ha. Also: you can’t sub these for attacks gained via bonus actions, which sort of sucks in some cases. Probably necessary so opportunity attacks did not become stupid.

Two, Mark (as well as Cleaving Through Creatures) are not in the PHB and while I don’t know how widely used they are, I wouldn’t guess they are common.

And a third point: you have all of these at level 1, your options don’t change much.

You’ve missed the point that anything your martial can conceive of doing is fair game. Topple a statue or bookcase onto your enemies? Rip down a curtain to entangle your foe? Pick up a handful of sand and fling it in your enemies eyes?

If you can’t do these at your table, the problem is your table.

 

[DnD Warlord]

If you wanted to, you absolutely could add every one of these to the game under existing rules. They’re called boons.

My criticism of your list is that it predominantly is just adding to damage. Damage is something a fighter already excels at so really you’re just making them more powerful in combat. Which as I understand is nothing to do with the martial/caster criticism. If your argument is that the combat superstars need even more damage then you’ve lost me.

If your fighter wants to train with that dragon slaying knight you simply grant them a boon. Wing-joint attack: You have advantage on your first ranged attack roll against a flying dragon in combat. When you attack a flying dragon and hit, doing at least 10 damage the dragon’s flying speed becomes 0 for 1 minute. The dragon will fall straight down and take 5d6 damage if it hits solid ground from the controlled fall. The dragon will be very angry.

Maybe even make it slightly more generic and say even though the dragon hunter showed you it will work on any winged creature.

 

[Undrave]

Its certainly a matter of taste for your homebrew. Although, if wizards didn't exist and you homebrewed it exactly as WoTC designed, I would call them too complicated as well.

Why can't they just have 25 spells known? Why do rituals not need preparing yet other prepared classes need prepared rituals? Why is it that they get 1 chance for Arcane Recovery?

That's not even getting into their actual spellcasting mechanics.

I don't mind people saying it's too complicated, I just wish they'd give me more to work with, ya know? Suggestions, or more precise criticism like "I like this aspect but not this aspect" that sort of thing. I share it because I'd like to improve it.

To be perfectly honest, a 'complicated' martial class would be such a breath of fresh air. As long as it wasn't the annoying kind of complex like wizards where you have to do homework every rest because Vance.

Not like that no.

I wanted to challenge myself by using the Rogue frame as the basis and the whole 'gimmick' is that the 'resource' you ned to do your fancy stuff is generated by you engaging in combat. Basically, as you roll initiative and perform the Attack action (you can also give up one of your Attack to use a 'Shout' to help others) you accrue an insight (represented by dice) into the current situation, which you an then cash in to do your tricks. They mostly scale with Sneak Attack if you use them as sheer bonus damage. A lot of it relies on your Reaction so you gain bonus 'Reactions' (limited to your Warlord abilities) later on in your progression. At 20th level you can basically React once per turn because of how supernaturally aware you've become.

I also have a Warlord Presence that grants you and allies a small buff at initiative and helps align you towards either INT, CHA or WIS as secondary stat.

And then I got a bunch of subclasses with various specialties (I made sure that all Subclass can be good regardless of with secondary you chose to favour, but some combination are better than other). I got a Psionic Subclass that radiates confidence and passion and turns Temp HP into elemental damage, I got one specializing in leading ranged units, I got one that's like a Martial Ranger multi class who is used to guerrilla fighting, I got a Chosen One for all your Lazylord needs, I got the Rabble Rouser for your underhanded and ambush needs, I got one who specializes in leading anti-spellcaster squads, I got a Combat Medic that basically gets the Healer feat for free, and the White Raven Tactician who is just a straight-forward 'be better at your core class stuff' subclass (they get more Shouts, their presence gets more range and their Insight gets more reliable).

 

[Flamestrike]

Isn't a Dragon Hunter just a Ranger with a Dragon Slayer sword?

 

[jmartkdr2]

I guess at this point.... is there really any more to say on this topic? I mean both camps have stated their cases.

Casters are Stronger

• Can do things Martials simply cannot do (aka "cinematically cooler")
• Has much stronger downtime options
• Martials are often helpless before magical powers that only casters can deal with, aka "reliant on casters"

Martials are Stronger (or at least equal)

• Superior in combat
• Caster's "superior utility" is mostly theoretical. In practice, with proper adjudication of prepared spells and encounters per day, casters are fairly limited.
• Unlimited Resources compared to caster resource limitations, which require them to fall back onto suboptimal cantrips compared to martial at-will attacks and techniques.

We have had 30 pages of people basically all stated the same general things in 400 different ways. Is there really anymore to say? I guess the question is....did anyone switch sides after hearing the debates?

I did! Sorta. I learned something, anyways.

I had not considered the idea that casters have more default downtime options, whereas martials have to rely more on dm fiat to have interesting things to do. It's something that hasn't come up in play for me (my dm's seem to already know this or something), but now I know directly yhat the next time I dm, this is something to watch out for.